The Revolution of the Palestinian Refugees

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

We can barely hear a whisper of revolution from the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. The masses of the Arab nation are coming out boldly and courageously, defending their rights and working to establish a leadership that springs from within them and speaks for them, while the Palestinian camps remain still, despite being the greatest losers from the Oslo agreement and the agreements that flowed from it, and the greatest losers from the absence of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its seizure by certain illegitimate individuals.

The Oslo agreement amounts to a negation of the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people, foremost among them the right of return, and the current councils of the Palestine Liberation Organization are illegitimate because they have violated the Organization’s own internal instructions and bylaws, and because those in charge of them signed agreements that are illegitimate from the standpoint of the Palestinian National Charter.

The Palestinian cause is being slaughtered at the hands of those who claim to defend it, and it is the duty of every Palestinian, whether inside Palestine or outside it, to stand in defense of the right, and never to allow the squandering of the rights of a people that has suffered for a hundred years. Everyone has seen, through experience and reality, that the dream of statehood has become nothing but a salary, a car, and privileges for a few individuals, while free land has become nothing but a target for settlement.

…the occupation lying in wait for them. Sometimes we see certain crowds gathered in support of the Authority and its president, but these are employees dragged out to demonstrate under the weight of their salaries and their private interests. This does not mean that the people in the land occupied in [19]67 have despaired and surrendered to Oslo and to corruption — I am convinced that their desire for change is growing.

But it remains important for the masses of the Palestinian people in the camps to move, demanding the abolition of Oslo, and the formation of a new Liberation Organization under a new Palestinian national charter that reflects the hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people. They must move in Yarmouk, al-Wehdat, Ein el-Hilweh, al-Rashidiyeh, al-Hussein, Idlib, and every Palestinian camp. The masses of the camps must not remain behind the masses of the nation, and the camps of the land of Greater Syria are required to lead the struggle to set the Palestinian condition right.

The masses of the nation came out driven by their genuine national zeal, leaving the parties panting behind them, and we have historically grown accustomed to the masses of the Palestinian people being out in front.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “ثورة اللاجئين الفلسطينيين” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.